While it is simplest to say that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the plays that bear his name, there are many arguments, ranging from curiously intriguing to outrageous, to suggest that he might not have.
Rogues, Vagabonds, and Sturdy Beggars:
The Shakespeare Authorship Question for Beginners
An excellent, non-partisan place to dive in
The Shakespeare Authorship Roundtable
Another good non-partisan site
The Shakespeare Question
A gathering of the evidence by a Princeton librarian:
As thorough and reliable as you'd expect, given the sourceThe Shakespeare Authorship Coalition
ADedicated to legitimizing the Shakespeare Authorship issue
"Brief History of the Authorship Question"
From the Shakespeare Fellowship (Oxfordian)-
A useful chronological summary of doubts
The Shakespeare Authorship Page
"Dedicated to the Proposition that Shakespeare Wrote Shakespeare"
An aggressive defense with much useful material
"The Case for Shakespeare"
By Irving Matus, Atlantic Monthly (Oct. 1991)
"To Be or Not To Be Shakespeare?"
By Doug Stewart, Smithsonian magazine (Sept. 2006)
Graceful, succinct coverage of the infighting
Frontline: The Shakespeare Mystery
Documentary first broadcast by PBS in 1989
Shakespeare Authorship Studies Conference
An annual conference, generally Anti-Stratfordian
Recommended
Reading:
Who Wrote Shakespeare? by John Michell (London: Thames & Hudson,
1996)
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